A Bright Soul in the Shadows
Hades
“Hey Hades do you copy, I repeat do you copy, answer me jackass!”
I snapped back to reality. I had one of the worst headaches I've ever had. After I achieved awareness, I remembered where I was. I was in the Zavhanna capitol. Hell, I was in the Caesar's palace in the middle of the night. Alright, time to think. My mission objectives: steal a large golden scroll with arcane writing on it. Pretty much all Luna gave us, everything useful of course. Hell, we didn't even know what we were really stealing. Anything from 'Top Ten Ways to Make Muffins', to a Zebra battle plan, to a picture of Celestia with a troll face could be what all this torture was for.
Wonderful way to spend the troops.
“Hey Hades what the fuck answer me.”
“Ares next time I ask you to scan for booby traps that includes concussion spells, splitting headaches are fine, but only when I wake up in the morning with a sexy ass mare next to me.”
“Oh! I'm sorry I'll go blow up your life-sized toy mare doll to make you feel better. Whatever happened to sampling the local barmaids, did the meany bar wenches scare you?” replied Ares in mocking scorn.
“Jackass...”
“Unfortunately I'm not a donkey but a pegasus.”
“Smartass.”
“what did I tell you about this donkey business!”
“...I'm going to kill you later.”
“Is that the headache speaking or you?”
No, that's Natural Selection.
“I'm definitely going to kill you now.”
“Unfortunately, your on a mission and can't right now. Should I let you get back to work honey dear?”
“Ares, shut the hell up!”
“Why? Big bro pissing you off?”
“Why yes big bro is pissing me off so much. I think were done here.” I clicked the mute button on my headset I'd turn it on later (after the red in my eyes faded), but right now I had better things to do than argue with my older brother.
Why couldn't my little brother be on this mission with me. At least he's respectful. But nooooooo, he had to be in the sea-pony nation handing “political” problems underwater.
I looked around the room I was in. It seemed pitch black, but my eyes adjusted to the low-light conditions as I scanned my surroundings. It was a small side room barren of any furniture. I slowly and silently got up to my hooves and checked to see if my things were still there. My M1911 strapped to my right thigh over my black and gray combat fatigue pants. My dual knife scabbard on my left hip was still there. One was a bowie knife with a sixteen inch blade length and the other was a balanced throwing knife with a eight inch blade length that could be converted to combat use as well. My bulletproof vest was still in place over my black t-shirt an empty duffel bag slung over my shoulder and a PDA on my wrist. I heard voices coming from a doorway so I eased up on the wall and peeked through. There within my sight lay a large golden scroll with blue arcane writing on it.
How convenient!
Adjacent to the scroll was two zebras guarding it, they had standard zebra guard equipment consisting of a heavily enchanted spear and light armor.
I could easily turn around the corner, putting my throwing knife in one a silenced .45 into the other. Or, I could meld through the wall and take them from behind or I could... yeah that's it.
I melded through the wall feeling the cold rush in my being as my body turned into a semi-permeable spirit form. While maintaining my energy-like state I jumped into one of the zebras borrowing his body for a while, ignoring the flood of thoughts going through this zebra's head as surprise gripped his consciousness.
As his controller, I turned to the right and looked at his partner and said in a thick accent “Wonderful night, no?”
The other zebra responded in an accent just as thick.
“Yeah if you don't mind guarding nothing”
We both turned back to facing forward. Quickly I flipped the spear around and stabbed the other zebra through the neck
Surprise!
A spear logged deep in his neck tissue. The guard staggered to his knees as his neck bled profusely. With a collection of gasps and sputters, the zebra grew silent as he fell to the ground dead. I “hopped” out of the zebra I was in, assuming my pegasus form and stabbed him in the throat with my throwing knife. I wiped the blood off on his shoulder before sheathing the blade, as it is important to maintain the welfare of your steel, but I had my uniform dry cleaned twice for the same situation. I looked up at the target.
Their protective levitation spell matrix should be in the pedestal.
You know I don't have time for this.
After unsheathed my throwing knife I jabbed it into the corner of the main console, pried off the front, and just ripped out a shit-load of wires. The scroll fell to the floor as I caught it.
Damn this must be 130 pounds of gold or maybe something else? What exactly am I holding?
I thought about opening it up but decided against it. Instead, I put it in the duffel bag. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two guards. Without a second thought, I flung around my 1911 and introduced them to lead in a very intimate way. Unfortunately, what I didn't see was the literal army of guards behind them and a very frightened Caesar running in the opposite direction. As they raised their weapons, hindsight began to play over in my head like a tape recording.
Shit! He was coming down to check the scroll!
I took cover behind the pedestal just as three blasts of energy came at me.
Damn those spears are awesome. why can't I have nice spears like those? Oh right, yeah their only coded for zebras to use and I'm a pegasus, maybe a great stabbing weapon, but no energy blasts.
I was thrown out of thought as more blasts crashed around me, I leaned out and fired off three rounds taking out two zebras.
...five rounds fired off,
...eight in the mag,
...three rounds left!
A zebra tried to flank my right he was met with a .45 round to the face.
...two!
Another tried the same thing on the left and swallowed a round in his throat.
...one in the chamber!
I dropped the empty mag and put in my last one, giving me nine rounds instead of eight.
Damn it! Why did I only bring one extra mag on this mission?
Then I remembered that I have a headset on.
Oh yeah!
I unmuted the mic and Ares heard it patch through.
“What the hell do yo-” he was cut off by the sound of energy blasts
“Ares, the mission has gone south. I need you to plot me an evac point and get the hell out now!”
“Hell no! I'm coming in!”
“Bro, trust me. I'll get out, and if I don't Celestia better sent your ass back here to avenge me. Little bro will want a piece of that too.”
“Fine, but you better be at the evac point or else Seidion is gonna get pissed.”
“Will do.”
I checked my PDA and there were the coordinates. I went to thank my brother but he already muted the mic. I unsheathed my large bowie knife with my left hand, gripping it backwards, and stabbed a zebra all the way through his chest. He served as a pretty good shield as I took out five more zebras with six rounds.
Alright, three rounds left.
I took cover behind the pedestal again and looked in front of me. Sitting there was a large window. I sheathed my bowie knife, turned fired off two rounds carefully, (taking out two guards) then I holstered my 1911 and sprinted at the window. at the last second before colliding with the window I entered spirit form and went through seamlessly; however the scroll had other intentions. It didn't enter my spirit form, but luckily stayed in the duffel bag and went crashing through the window. It caused me to jerk back on collision and get hit with an energy blast in the side. Fortunately I was wearing my vest so it wasn't lethal, but it still burned like a mother-bucker. But I didn't care, I was free.
I started flying east to the evac point when I was ambushed about four miles away from the palace. He seemingly stepped out of the clouds and put a spear against my throat, he had a wing fetish on those reddish, unnatural bat wings sprouting out of his back. He had full, heavy armor on covering his entire body except his head. When I looked at his face, it was hard to tell that he was a zebra. His coat the color of fresh charcoal, his stripes somehow darker, and his left eye was scared. It looked like his sclera and pupil decided to switch places. His pupil pure white and the rest of his eye black he didn't even have an iris in that eye.
“Well you have been causing quite a stir haven't you?”
He spoke with an oily voice that didn't have the thick zebra accent and would have been charismatic, if it didn't sound so evil.
I smirked at him and entered spirit form, moving away from the blade. Unfortunately, he not only knew where I was he could touch me. He jerked the blade closer into my throat. Any further and my neck would have been torn open like stuffing. My escape attempt allowed me to get a closer look at the blade it was definitely not one of the regular guard spears. The black hardwood shaft was six feet long, and the blade itself was two and a half feet. The base was adorned with over a dozen feathers from previous pegasi he'd slaughtered.
“Ah Ah Ah” he started to warn me “we can't have you leave on such a grand occasion can we?”
More zebras showed up with their own wing fetishes. As soon as they saw the large zebra that had a spear to my neck, they did their best at kneeling in midair as the one that appeared to be leading the group came up and said “Legate Xythos”
Xythos. Now I have a name and a target.
Xythos nodded the zebra off and they all started pointing spears at me.
Really? I have a spear to my throat. Why in Fausts name do I need six more pointed at me?
Xythos shifted the spear to his right hand, unzipped the duffel bag and pulled out the scroll with one hand as if it weighed nothing.
“Really such simple things aren't they?-”
he said as he turned the scroll in one hand
“-Though I doubt you could even understand what you just tried to steal, no matter, I should thank you for the lovely game of cat-n-mouse. It gives us an excuse to put more security on the scroll now.”
He handed the scroll to a zebra that visibly fell a foot because of the weight of the scroll
“Make sure that gets to the vault, or I'll fornicate with your skull after ripping it off. Understood?” The zebra with the scroll nodded furiously and fled away towards the palace.
“Now what to do with you?” the large zebra asked himself as he turned back to me, stroking his chin thoughtfully for a few moments before smiling devilishly.
A single thought came to my head as I spoke for the first time since meeting this psychopath. “I'm fucked arn't I?” He nodded while smiling and a bag came over my head then a sharp pain above my temple as I lost consciousness.